


Backstabber

by Star_Going_Supernova



Category: Little Nightmares (Video Games)
Genre: (broken time loop), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Fix-It, Fluff, Gen, Happy Ending, I'm dying on that hill, Little Nightmares II Spoilers, Mono is kidnapped by the Thin Man instead of Six, Murder, Time Loop, friends for life y'all, wink wink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-24 01:20:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30064476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Star_Going_Supernova/pseuds/Star_Going_Supernova
Summary: When Mono unleashes the Thin Man, it’s not Six who gets kidnapped.(Or, the Thin Man is determined to break the loop, but he’s actually of no help at all.)
Relationships: Mono & Six (Little Nightmares)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 197





	Backstabber

**Author's Note:**

> Listen, Six is a gremlin and I’ve loved her since the first game. I didn’t just stop liking her when she dropped Mono, though I think that was very not cool of her. So this is a fix-it where I try to justify the creepy things Six does in LN2. 
> 
> There is a death in this story, in case you didn’t notice the murder tag, but I didn’t feel quite right using the “Major Character Death” tag. It’s not at all explicit, either, so no gore! 
> 
> Hope y’all enjoy!

It happened in a blur.

Mono’s head was throbbing when Six pulled him out of the television, and past the static filling his ears, he was only vaguely aware of his surroundings.

Six urgently tugging at him, trying to get him to stand up and run. The hands, first pressed against the television screen on the other side, then pushing through. The air popped and Mono’s vision briefly whited out.

A creature—an adult—stepped out of the screen, unfolding his long, thin body into the room. Six had resorted to dragging him, her soft grunts just barely audible over the way everything was shaking.

Mono couldn’t look away from the man.

Loose objects floated weightlessly into the air, which turned thick around them, slowing their movements down. He heard Six make a shocked sound as the bizarre change threw her off balance. She toppled to the floor in slow motion, his name caught in her throat.

The man glitched, an ominous blue-magenta glow backlighting him. His skinny arm reached out, and like a magnet, Mono felt himself be pulled off the floor. His stomach turned as he was yanked through the air.

Slender fingers curled around his back, and he weakly pushed at the soft flesh at the base of the man’s thumb.

His last thought was for Six as his eyes rolled back in his head.

• • •

When Mono awoke, he was sitting propped up in a chair. Sitting across from him, in an identical seat, was the man.

It was funny, Mono thought. The chair was much too big for him and much too small for the adult.

He felt tired, like even trying to lift his arm up would take too much effort. Even speaking was too difficult. He could only manage a little hum.

The man tilted his head. He was pale and had a narrow, gaunt face. A hat sat on his head, which shadowed his eyes, like Mono and the cap he’d exchanged his paper bag for. Despite that, he got the sense they were both staring at one another.

Finally, he managed to whisper, “What’d you do to my friend?”

A low, raspy chuckle answered him. “She’s not your friend,” the man said. His voice was cracked and hoarse, like it’d been a really long time since he’d last spoken. “And unfortunately, she escaped before I could grab her too.”

Mono sagged even more limply in relief. Six had gotten away.

The man leaned forward. “You seem… happy. About that.”

Feeling bold, he said, “’Cause she’ll come rescue me.” That was how they worked, always looking out for each other, always offering boosts and out-stretched hands. Six wouldn’t leave him here.

But the man laughed, in that infuriating way adults had, like he thought Mono was just being silly. “She’s not coming for you, boy. She’ll leave you here to rot.”

“You don’t know her,” Mono retorted. Anger burned inside his chest. “She’d never abandon me!”

Crossing one leg over the other, the man smiled. It was a brittle, fake expression, stretched inhumanly. Like he’d forgotten how. “I know her plenty well,” he sneered. “You don’t know what’s at play here, boy. This has played out before, but this time…” he chuckled meanly. “This time, I’m doing it myself.”

“Doing what?”

The man lunged forward like a snake, his sudden proximity revealing his eyes—they were wild, pupils nothing but pinpricks, and the irises a pale, sickly yellow. “I am _saving you,_ ” he hissed. “Because _she_ won’t.” He thumped back into his chair, once more letting the shadows conceal the upper half of his face.

Mono’s heart beat frantically in his chest. He didn’t understand what the man was talking about, why he seemed so sure Six wouldn’t rescue him. Frightened and at a loss for words, he merely shook his head.

“We go around and around,” the man muttered, head lolling forward. Mono got the sense he wasn’t being spoken to, not anymore. “I save her, I _free_ her from that wretched Hunter, and it’s all for _nothing_ in the end. She always lets me fall, no matter what changes, no matter what I try. Little _backstabber._ So I won’t give her the option this time, no, no. She can wither away on her own out there—let the Viewers tear her apart!—but I’ll not see another life of mine _wasted!_ ”

Pressing back into the wood of his chair, Mono frantically cast his eyes around the room, taking in his surroundings for the first time. It was a seemingly endless space, stretching so high above them that the darkness and fog entirely obscured the ceiling. Odd staircases stretched from one wall to another at random intervals, connecting doorways full of bright magenta light.

Like in the room he’d been kidnapped from, random objects floated aimlessly around them, and it was only when the chair wobbled as he leaned to the side that Mono realized their chairs weren’t on the ground.

They were floating, too.

Mono squeaked and froze, trembling at the thought of his chair tipping over and spilling him into nothingness. Or would he simply stay suspended as well?

He was torn from his panic by a hand wrapping around the side of his head, cold fingers coming to lay across his face. The thin man was smiling again, teeth rotted and yellow.

“You’ll be safe here,” he rasped, sending shivers down Mono’s spine. “I’ll never let that little monster touch you again.”

“You’re crazy!” Mono cried, wiggling uselessly. The man didn’t release him. “I’m the one who saved Six, not you!”

Voice flat and frigid, his captor said, “Don’t you see? I _am_ you. I am you, and you are me, trapped in a loop, forever cursed to go back and do it all again, and for nothing. Six always lets me die, and you always destroy me before I can keep you from coming here. But not this time. No, no, not this time at all.”

“No,” he whispered. “You—you’re lying! I’m nothing like you! I trust Six—she wouldn’t do that!”

“Have you already forgotten her cruelty? Every path is the same, boy, right up until _I_ become involved. She tore that bully apart in the school, she broke the fingers of the plastic hand! And there’s more, always more! She’s a wicked thing, delighting in the pain and suffering of others.”

Mono pushed at the man’s fingers, desperate to be released. He shook his head as much as he was able, recoiling from the cold accusations aimed at his friend. But as much as he wanted to deny it, those really were things Six had done. But it wasn’t because she was cruel, right?

“She catches you,” the man said, looming closer. He whispered right into Mono’s ear, merciless. “And then, after all you did to save her, she _drops_ you. And you fall. You fall down, down, down, to the inescapable depths, where you stay trapped until the next version of your younger self frees you.”

“But if that’s how it works,” Mono choked out, “I’ll still become you, if you keep me here! I don’t _want_ —”

“It doesn’t matter what you want! I refuse to ever let another of us wake up in that forest—”

The man’s words continued, but Mono was deaf to them. His eyes, wide and hidden beneath the brim of his cap, had caught movement. Hope and smug defiance rose up in him, for he was sure that the glimpse he’d seen had been of something bright yellow.

_Let it be Six,_ he pleaded internally. _Please, let her have come for me._

“You think she would not tear at your throat or break your own fingers, given half the chance?” the man was spitting. “That she would not warm herself by your burning body? She is a monster, and she has _abandoned_ you—”

Something dropped from a staircase above them, heavy and falling past the objects untouched by gravity. Mono only just had time to recognize the glint of an axe blade before it was buried in the thin man’s back.

Wide-eyed, he watched the man’s body jerk with the impact, and his hand slipped limply off Mono’s head. He gurgled wetly, remaining folded over his long legs.

Six’s head popped up over his shoulder, her hood down, and with a little scramble, she used the man like a bridge to reach Mono on his chair. Falling to her knees beside him, she hugged him close and glared fiercely at the adult.

“I attacked the bully because the only weapon was in its sight. It would have seen Mono before he could grab it,” she whispered harshly. “I broke the fingers for practice, in case one of them grabbed Mono and I didn’t have a weapon. The hospital was cold, and I wouldn’t be able to help Mono if I froze to death.” She nodded at her bare legs. “And I’ve been saving him from you since the beginning.” Baring her teeth as blood seeped out of the man’s slack mouth, she asked, “Why would I stop now?”

The man either had no answer for her or was too far gone to speak. He listed to the side before slipping off his chair, and together, Mono and Six watched him plummet out of sight, devoured by the dark abyss below.

Huffing, Six sat down fully, pressed warmly against his side. “He was stupid.”

“He said he was me,” Mono whispered, shivering. He welcomed the arm she put around his shoulders, pulling him closer. “That we’re part of a loop. That means the same things just happened over and over again, right?”

“Maybe he was lying.” She shrugged. “And it wouldn’t this time, anyway. If you only become him if you stay here, then there’s nothing to worry about, ’cause we’ll leave.”

That made sense. He nodded, breathing a sigh of relief. “Do you think he was telling the truth?”

“Nah,” she said. “You’re too nice to be him.”

He smiled, pressing his face into her raincoat. “Really?”

“Don’t be silly,” she said. He could practically hear her rolling her eyes. “You’re the nicest person I know.”

“That—Six, that’s not saying a lot.”

She giggled. “I just think about how I pushed you when you tried to help me up. When we first met? But you didn’t get mad or anything. So obviously, that means you’re really nice.”

“Oh.” He thought for a moment. “I kinda forgot about that.”

“See? You’re bad at holding grudges. Which means that guy _couldn’t_ be you.”

Nodding along, he decided Six was probably right. He much preferred thinking that the man was crazy over the alternative. The idea that he could become someone so bitter and awful made his heart squeeze.

But Six didn’t think he would, and he trusted Six. He had from the beginning, and it was one of the best decisions he’d ever made.

“So, how do we get out of here?” Mono asked, looking around. There wasn’t anything close enough for them to jump to or grab.

The nearest was a floating suitcase, almost right above them. A neat path of objects lead from it to a staircase, making it the ideal escape path, but it was too high up. There was no way to reach it.

Six stood, pulling him up with her. “The same way we always do,” she said, eyeing the suitcase herself before crouching down and lacing her fingers in front of her to create a foothold. “Together.”

**Author's Note:**

> I love the trope of one character pointing out bad things another character does, only for someone to throw those things back in their face with good-hearted reasoning as the first one dies. It’s a very specific trope, I’m realizing as I reread that sentence, lol. Write the tropes you want to see in the world, y’know?
> 
> I wanted them to be a little more kid-like than in my Side Effects series without making them seem too childish. I’m personally pleased with the result. 
> 
> • [my tumblr](https://star-going-supernova.tumblr.com) •


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